6/18/2009 @ 6:00PM

Teller On Power Ambition Glory

Teller is an American illusionist, comedian, writer and the silent half of the comedy magic duo known as Penn & Teller.

Tell us about a time when lessons learned from the ancients contributed to your success.

I make my living humbly, doing live shows. Western theater hasn’t changed very much since the Greeks invented it. It’s still very primitive: A bunch of people watch some other people tell stories. So when I first read Aristotle’s Poetics in college–especially his very nuts-and-bolts dissection of what makes a sound plot rich in ironic surprises–this changed everything I subsequently did. I often laugh that would-be writers spend a fortune on specious screenwriting seminars when they could get the real goods from Aristotle with a quick Web search.

If you could invite one classical figure to dinner, who would it be and why?

If you’re talking dinner guest, I’d have Marcus Valerius Martialis (“Martial” to his fans). He was the Jon Stewart of his day, skewering everybody in the smart set with the truth. If you’re talking about a party planner, oh, I’d have Petronius Arbiter, Nero’s fashion maven and social director. He was a famously frank fellow, who knew when the only thing left to do was laugh.

Who is the most powerful person in your life?

Apart from myself (I after all, have the power of life and death over me), my business and artistic partner, Penn Jillette. We share everything 50-50 (money, decisions, fights), and each of us has an absolute veto, which, to the best of my recollection, neither of us has ever exercised.

What is your secret ambition?

If I tell you, then it won’t be a secret. I like keeping works in progress a secret, because I’m less embarrassed when they fail (as most works in progress do). In this way I bluff the world into thinking I have a high ratio of hits.

At what price glory?

In 1975 I was a schoolteacher in New Jersey. Penn persuaded me to try a year’s “leave of absence,” and give show business a try. From the moment I was earning my living doing what I loved, I had all the glory I’ve ever needed. I don’t think I’m capable of distinguishing between the applause of 100 and that of 100 million.

Greeks or Romans?

We need both. Greeks invented democracy. Romans invented the idea of protecting the individual from the government. The founding fathers built our country on both these principles. But let’s not forget that when the Greeks diluted their democratic and rational ideas by showing too much respect for less philosophically advanced cultures, they moved from the Hellenic (“pure Greek”) age into the Hellenistic (“sort of like Greek”) age that led them to their fall. One historian I know, Scott Powell, suggests we call the last hundred years the “Americanistic” age; an age of boasting about American principles of individual liberty as we little by little feed them into the shredder.